Unisys Corporation

David S Dodgson

Ralph Farina

Robert A Johnson

Joseph P Neill

Scott Summers

Albert French

Edward Chin

Anthony Narisi

James Albert Fontana

David George Maw

Sarah K Inforzato

Ted W Hinaman

Gregory J Small

Matthew Mohr

William H Gunn

Steven J Rajcan

Robert Johnson

James A Fontana

David Maw

Methods and systems for securing communications with an enterprise from a remote computing system are disclosed. One method includes initiating a secured connection with a VPN appliance associated with an enterprise using service credentials maintained in a secure applet installed on a remote computing device, and initiating communication with an authentication server within an enterprise via the secured connection. The method also includes receiving specific credentials from the authentication server, terminating the secured connection with the VPN appliance, and initiating a second secured connection with the VPN appliance using the specific credentials, the specific credentials providing access to one or more computing devices within the enterprise being within a same community of interest as the remote computing device and obfuscating one or more other computing systems within the enterprise excluded from the community of interest. The method also includes initiating communications with at least one of the one or more computing devices included in the community of interest.

Secure remote access for secured enterprise communications

Virtual machines in a network may be isolated by encrypting transmissions between the virtual machines with keys possessed only by an intended recipient. Within a network, the virtual machines may be logically organized into a number of community-of-interest (COI) groups. Each COI may use an encryption key to secure communications within the COI, such that only other virtual machines in the COI may decrypt the message. Virtual machines may be automatically provisioned with configuration information, such as the encryption keys, when the virtual machine is started. The provisioning information may be created based on a template stored on a configuration server.

Automated provisioning of virtual machines

Virtual machines in a network may be isolated by encrypting transmissions between the virtual machines with keys possessed only by an intended recipient. Within a network, the virtual machines may be logically organized into a number of community-of-interest (COI) groups. Each COI may use an encryption key to secure communications within the COI, such that only other virtual machines in the COI may decrypt the message. Virtual machines may further be isolated through a virtual gateway assigned to handle all communications between a virtual machine and a device outside of the virtual machine's COI. The virtual gateway may be a separate virtual machine for handling decrypting and encrypting messages for transmission between virtual machines and other devices.

Virtual gateways for isolating virtual machines

A secure storage appliance is disclosed, along with methods of storing and reading data in a secure storage network. The secure storage appliance is configured to present to a client a virtual disk, the virtual disk mapped to the plurality of physical storage devices. The secure storage appliance is capable of executing program instructions configured to generate a plurality of secondary blocks of data by performing splitting and encrypting operations on a block of data received from the client for storage on the virtual disk and reconstitute the block of data from at least a portion of the plurality of secondary blocks of data stored in shares on corresponding physical storage devices in response to a request from the client.

Block-level data storage security system

Dynamic licensing improves the utilization of licenses available within a computer network. License sinks, such as gateways, within a computer network may request licenses from a license source. The license source may be provisioned with a number of licenses from a secure fob plugged into the license source. If the license source has the number of licenses requested from the license sink, the license source may assign the licenses to the license sink. After a certain period of time, the license sink may renew the licenses or let the licenses return to the license source to be assigned to another license sink. The license requests may be passed through the network, including through a proxy and/or a relay, to a license server provisioned with licenses. Dynamic licensing software may execute as a service on each of the license sources and license sinks to pass dynamic licensing messages between devices.

Dynamic licensing

Methods and systems for maintaining data connectivity in a secure data storage network are disclosed. In one aspect, a method includes assigning a volume to a primary secure storage appliance located in a secure data storage network the primary secure storage appliance selected from among a plurality of secure storage appliances located in the secure data storage network, the volume presented as a virtual disk to a client device and mapped to physical storage at each of a plurality of storage systems. The method further includes detecting at one of the plurality of secure storage appliances a failure of the primary secure storage appliance. The method also includes, upon detecting the failure of the primary secure storage appliance, reassigning the volume to a second secure storage appliance from among the plurality of secure storage appliances, thereby rendering the second secure storage appliance a new primary secure storage appliance.

Storage availability using cryptographic splitting

Methods and systems for administrative management of a secure data storage network are disclosed. One system includes a secure storage appliance configured to host a plurality of volumes, each volume associated with a plurality of shares stored on a corresponding plurality of physical storage devices and having a plurality of volume management settings, wherein each volume is accessible by a group of one or more users, each user assigned an administrative access level, the volume management settings are editable by a first user from the group of one or more users associated with the volume and assigned an administrative access level sufficient to edit the volume management settings, and the volume management settings are inaccessible by a second user from outside the group of one or more users associated with the volume and assigned an administrative access level at least equal to that of the first user.

Storage security using cryptographic splitting

Block-level data storage using an outstanding write list

A secure storage appliance is disclosed, along with methods of storing and reading data in a secure storage network. In one aspect, a method includes assigning a volume to a primary secure storage appliance located in a secure data storage network, the secure data storage network including a plurality of secure data paths between the primary secure storage appliance and a client device and a plurality of secure data paths between the secure storage appliance and a plurality of storage systems, the volume corresponding to physical storage at each of the plurality of storage systems. The method also includes detecting a connectivity problem on at least one of the secure data paths. The method further includes assessing whether to reassign the volume to a different secure storage appliance based upon the connectivity problem.

Growing community of inventors

Lansdale, PA, United States of America

David S Dodgson